'New excrement rises to the surface'

By ROY PULLUM

There is something about being 72.  

I am rarely shocked by people's statements or actions.  It is hard to view the world through rose-colored glasses when I have seen so many crass actions and actors.  I have seen shoddy leadership and no leadership at all, but sometimes from the sewer of man's lack of civility, new excrement rises to the surface.

Last night when the Kentucky legislature overrode Gov. Matt Bevin's vetoes, he had a press conference. Many school systems in the state had closed to allow teachers to go to Frankfort in an effort to protect our schools from draconian budget cuts and safeguard their pensions.

Instead of showing leadership, our governor said that because schools were closed, some child was inevitably molested yesterday.  I hate to break it to him, but students are molested every day, regardless of schools being open or closed.  His cuts in funding for state social workers have more to do with child molesting than any school closing.  

If the cause for molestation is schools being closed, maybe he ought to adequately fund schools for a seven-days-a-week schedule.  Oops, that would offend his religious sensibility.  Surely, no one gets raped on Sunday.  That would be a vile desecration of the Lord's day, and Gov. Bevin and God wouldn't like that.

I am sure that somewhere in Kentucky there are individuals who agree with his return to chalk-and-slate days in education. I am not one.  If we truly want to get 21st century jobs for our students, if we want to move this state from having one of four students living in poverty, if we want to reduce the gaping chasm between Kentucky and the top education states, we have to show we mean it.  

That takes money and moral support from the governor, the legislature and the taxpayers.